A blog about science fiction and fantasy novels, films and related matters

Sunday, 1 April 2018

Moonrise, edited by Mike Ashley

This anthology is subtitled "The Golden Age of Lunar
Adventures" and is the first, along with Lost Mars (watch this space), to be published in the British
Library's Science Fiction Classics
series. The publishers have kindly sent me copies to review, but frankly I
needed no incentive to get stuck into these books, which are intended to
retrieve some of the more interesting but largely forgotten SF of the past.

There is a lengthy introduction by the editor, pointing out
some of the high points of fiction concerning voyages to our Moon. The stories
have of course evolved along with our understanding of our satellite. Accounts
of what might be found, if only it were possible to visit, have been around for
at least 2,000 years, and until the 20th century they mostly assumed
that some sort of humanoid life would be found there, probably gigantic. In
many cases the purpose of the stories was merely to satirise, or contrast with,
human society on Earth. For most of this time, writers faced the problem of how
to reach the Moon; early solutions included being sucked up into the air by a
waterspout or blown up by a volcanic eruption, climbing a beanstalk, or
strapping on giant wings. Others dodged the issue by portraying everything that
happened as a dream.

The invention of the telescope allowed astronomers to
provide much better descriptions of the Moon's surface. The German astronomer
Johannes Kepler put his knowledge into fictional form in Somnium (published posthumously in 1634), in which he speculates
that there can be little if any atmosphere between the Earth and the Moon (confirmed
a few decades later), and that there would be extremes of temperature between
day and night. Other authors were more concerned with religious and
philosphical debates with the supposed inhabitants of the satellite. The
well-known author Cyrano de Bergerac was the first to propose the use of a
series of rockets to make the journey. One interesting early novel, published
in 1783 by Belgian baroness Cornélie Wouters, was the first to utilise the
newly-discovered technology of lighter-than-air balloons to reach the Moon,
which proved to have a society entirely run by women – and all the better for
it!

Much excitement was generated in 1835 with the publication
in a newspaper of the discoveries of the famous astronomer Sir John Herschel,
made using a powerful new telescope in South Africa. These included forests and
all forms of animal life. This turned out to be merely a hoax by a journalist,
but it did spark much public interest, as did the use of some form of
"anti-gravity" as employed by H.G. Wells but first proposed by other
authors, starting in 1827. After various proposals for using giant guns to
launch spacecraft (notably by Jules Verne) the use of rockets was proposed by
the Russian scientist Tsiolkovsky, around the end of the 19th
century. These of course ultimately led to Werner von Braun and the start of
the space age.

So to the stories:

Dead Centre by Judith Merril: first published 1954. This is
very different in focus and tone from most of the rest of the stories, in that
it concerns the impact on a family – and especially a small boy – when the
boy's father is sent to be the first man to land on the Moon. A well-constructed
but depressingly downbeat tale. There is one oddity – the main limitation on
the length of time people can survive in a spacecraft is assumed to be food,
not air.

A Visit to the Moon by George Griffith: first published 1901.
An episode from a longer story, A
Honeymoon in Space, which was initially serialised as was usual at the time.
According to the editor's introduction to this episode Griffiths, a prolific
writer of "scientific romance" was even more popular than H.G. Wells
in his day, but he died in 1906 at the age of 49 and has been forgotten since.

This is a story of curious contrasts. It starts with a
decidedly old-fashioned feel as a rich and titled man, having funded the
development of a spaceship with a new form of propulsion, has decided to use it
to take his bride around the solar system for their honeymoon. They are
accompanied by a talented engineer who, being their social inferior, of course
lives and eats in a separate part of the spacious vessel.

Their first stop is the Moon, and here the mood changes to
something much more modern. The description of the conditions on the Moon are
(up to a point) so accurate that they might have been written in the late
1960s. I was particularly startled to read a comment that while there was a lot
of fine dust on the surface it wasn't a problem since, in the absence of an
atmosphere, it dropped straight back to the surface when disturbed instead of
billowing around. The narrator also comments that the "dark side" of
the Moon is much the same as the part we can see (contrary to common belief at
the time). There is one technical oversight which seems to have been widespread:
while the need to wear face masks and carry oxygen while walking on the Moon was
understood, the need to use a pressurised suit was not, and well-insulated
clothing sufficed to deal with the temperature extremes! Where the author's
description of the Moon departs from reality is (inevitably) in the discovery
of life, but even that is a lot more reasoned and credible than in most such
stories at the time.

Sunrise on the Moon by John Munro: first published 1894. An
oddity, this one, as it starts out with a dream sequence, written in decidedly
purple prose, describing what sunrise would look like. This then segues into a
lecture on the conditions to be found on the Moon (the author mainly wrote
popular science articles). Like Griffith's tale this is surprisingly accurate
in general, although the probability that life developed and might still hang
on in some form inevitably features. One error which was common at this time is
to attribute the Moon's cratered landscape entirely to vulcanicity rather than asteroid
strikes.

First Men in the Moon by H.G. Wells: first published 1901. An
extract from the end of the novel. This is the one really famous story featured
in this collection, so is unlikely to need much of an introduction. The main
point of interest in this extract is the nature of the Selenites who (for once)
are not humanoids, but more like giant ants. It is particularly interesting to
note the way in which their development is channelled into different forms for
different purposes: a precursor to Huxley's Brave
New World.

Sub-Satellite by Charles Cloukey: first published 1928. This is
mainly notable for the precocity of the author, who was only sixteen when this
(his first success) was published, and died at the age of nineteen having
published only eight more stories. The editor observes that this story contains
one of the first references in fiction to rockets being used to propel
spacecraft, rather than anti-gravity or other mystical power sources, and the
vessel also contains a computer (he might have added that the computer was
coupled to a radar set in order to detect and avoid any meteoroids). The author
also explores a possible effect of firing a gun on the Moon, in terms of
ballistics: while his proposal is just about theoretically possible, it's
practically impossible, but is anyway the product of a remarkable imagination.

Lunar Lilliput by William F. Temple: first published 1938. A
very strange tale this with a very dated feel, for me definitely in the field
of fantasy rather than SF. The title is a clue…

Nothing Happens on the Moon, by Paul Ernst: first published 1939.
A man is left on his own to manage an emergency base on the Moon for a period
of months. An exceedingly boring job since nothing ever happens, until it does…
The basic scenario is strongly reminiscent of Moon, the 2009 film directed by Duncan Jones, but the story shifts
into a more exotic kind of horror as it develops.

Whatever Gods There Be by Gordon R. Dickson: first published
1961. A tense drama as the crew of a moon rocket try to recover from an
accident in order to fly home. It's those cold equations…

Idiot's Delight by John Wyndham: first published 1958. An
episode from a series on the Troon family, collected as The Outward Urge in 1959. A nuclear war has devastated the Earth
and led to fighting between the Russian and American Moon bases, but the
smaller British one has been left untouched – so far. A psychodrama in which
the base commander is faced with mutiny as he wrestles with his dilemma.

After a Judgement Day by Edmond Hamilton: first published 1963.
Like the previous story, this has a Moon base surviving the devastation of
human life on Earth, this time by an accidental plague rather than nuclear war.
There are only two people left on the base, but there is still one worthwhile
job they can do.

The Sentinel by Arthur C. Clarke: first published 1951. A
famous story as it provided the initial seed of what became the 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey. An excellent,
rather haunting short story, but I couldn't help thinking at the end that
Clarke unnecessarily stretched credibility too far by the enormous time scale
he chose. Would an advanced civilisation still be interested in something they set
up hundreds of millions of years ago?

Apart from First Men
in the Moon (read too long ago to recall much) and The Sentinel, all of these stories were new to me. While many of
the individual stories may be found elsewhere, it is fascinating and
instructive to read them all together in this context. For me, the main
discovery was George Griffith and I note that a 480-page paperback titled George Griffith, Science Fiction Collection
was published in 2014, so I'll add that to my purchase list.

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